Restless
by Kyonkichi89
Summary: John's first night in 221B Baker Street, set after the events of "A Study In Pink". Sherlock's late-night wandering keeps John awake.


**Restless**

Even before the war, John had been a light sleeper. Every little noise would wake him or prevent him from falling asleep, leaving him to lie staring at the ceiling for hours. As a teenager, Harry would sometimes sneak out to drink with mates and he'd hear her every time as she tried to tiptoe past his closed door. He'd sometimes get her into trouble with their parents but he'd soon given up on tattling because she always gave him a good pummeling for his trouble. One evening when he was six, he'd lain on his back trying to pinpoint the noise that was keeping him awake. It took him two hours to figure out that it was the faucet in the hall bathroom leaking and he'd gotten out of bed to shut it off. No, John could not fall asleep without complete silence and even then, the slightest sound would send his eyelids flying open again.

The war had made him even more on edge. He'd had to be prepared for duty at a moment's notice and now whenever he awoke, it was to the sensation of adrenaline pumping through his veins and his muscles poised for action. He was certain that, despite protracted exposure to eardrum-shattering explosions, his hearing had actually become more acute, never mind the fact that this made no medical sense. How else could he explain his ability to zero in on the space heater switching on in the loo below or on the floorboards creaking to themselves on the first floor? Every sound the ancient flat made, not to mention his flatmate, had John on the alert and in full soldier mode. He supposed he should have factored that into his consideration of a flatshare in the first place, but as it turned out, he hadn't thought the decision through at all. He'd looked before he'd leaped for the first time since the war and it had felt brilliant.

That didn't change the fact that, despite his new flatmate's lightness of step, John could hear every movement Sherlock Holmes made as he prowled about the flat. Just now, he was in the kitchen working with his chemicals to the accompaniment of clinks and clicks of glass and metal apparatus. John knew he should be surprised that Sherlock found 4:30 a.m. to be a good time for chemistry, and after a harrowing day of foot chases and mind games no less, but he honestly wasn't. From what John had seen of him today, a little early morning science experiment was tame compared to any number of odd-hour exploits John could imagine the consulting detective getting up to. He had noticed before going up that certain chemicals which, if he remembered anything from chemistry at Bart's, could cause a rather impressive explosion if combined decanted in alarming proximity to one another. He hoped that a genius – which Sherlock certainly was – would know what he was doing. And he could be mistaken. It had been a long time since Uni.

Soft, bare footsteps made their way from the kitchen into the sitting room and John rolled onto his back to listen without the pillow's interference. He tried to imagine the room downstairs from the brief time he'd spent in it today. The first time he had seen 221B, it had been cluttered with Sherlock's half-unpacked belongings and the third time it had been crawling with police. He could picture some things clearly already, like the skull on the mantle and the Union Jack pillow in the burgundy armchair. Or was it brown? But the thing John remembered most about the flat was his flatmate. Sherlock's presence expanded to fill the space, every object he touched becoming a conduit for his near-manic energy. The man was so dynamic, John could hardly take his eyes of him for fear of missing whatever outrageous thing he did next.

But although he could not nail down the colors of the flat's furnishings nor describe them in any more detail than an armchair, a table, a bookcase, he did remember their general positions and he heard Sherlock's footsteps pause once before stopping at the couch against the far wall directly under John's room. Old springs wheezed as he sat down and then the faintest whisper of plucked strings reached John's ears. Sherlock played so softly that John could only pick out one note in five and he wondered with a grin whether Sherlock was making an effort not to scare off his new flatmate. Sherlock should have realized that if John were going to flee, he would have done so already; the detective had seemed supremely confident about John staying earlier in the evening, but the doctor reflected that darkness and quiet had the tendency to make things less certain. He remembered what Sherlock had said at the lab – God, had that only been yesterday morning? – about playing the violin when he needed to think. Maybe he really was wondering if his new flatmate would stay. His new flatmate, a man who could shoot someone without thought to protect a man he'd just met. But that was absurd. Sherlock had dismissed the incident almost as soon as he had identified the shooter and besides that, he probably worked dozens of cases at once and had plenty to think about.

Sherlock stroked the strings of his violin for just under five minutes and John decided that he hoped Sherlock had not been thinking about him after all. He would hope that he deserved more than five pathetic minutes of the detective's consideration. John heard the case snap shut and then more footsteps as Sherlock moved about the sitting room. Glancing at the clock to find that it was now 5:02, John reflected that if Sherlock slept this little and prowled this much on a regular basis, he would be getting a lot less sleep himself. But he hadn't slept well in his old apartment either – he'd slept terribly there, to be honest – and it had been totally silent. Besides, things had finally started happening to him again. Today, for the first time since the war, John had had something to write about in his ridiculous blog. Sleep deprivation would be a small price to pay for the feeling of being alive and part of something again, although he had no real idea what that something was, though he had a sneaking suspicion that the whole thing was entirely mad. Looking back on the day, John wasn't sure that Sherlock was the only mad inhabitant of 221B Baker Street, but he felt strangely comfortable with that.

John realized distantly that he must be drifting off because only on the edge of sleep would he both admit to and embrace insanity. He liked to think of himself as a rational sort of fellow, really, and this evening he'd been anything but. But it had been glorious. John had felt more normal and more himself with Sherlock Holmes than he had in a very long while, and that wasn't because Sherlock was abnormal by comparison. Not only had Sherlock figured out his thirst for danger in under twenty-four hours, he'd accepted it in just as short a time. Instead of trying to convince John to leave war behind, Sherlock had brought a whole new war to John, who had accepted it with open arms. No, Sherlock had him figured out and didn't want to change him. What he did want to do still made little sense to John and probably stood to endanger him, but if that was the price for feeling like part of reality again, John would pay it and keep paying it. So rather than unnerving him, the realization that Sherlock had him figured out was comforting.

The sounds from downstairs continued, and they were comforting, too. It sounded like Sherlock was unpacking the last of his things and setting the boxes aside. It occurred to John that if Sherlock had accepted his attraction to danger without question, he should be able to accept Sherlock's late-night lurking. So John listened to the sounds of books scuffing onto shelves and mugs thunking into cupboards, liking their permanence. The noises continued in slowly receding waves, sounding more and more distant. He could no longer pinpoint the exact location of Sherlock's presence, nor could he identify what exactly the detective was doing. As the late-night sounds mingled and merged with John's pulse in his ears, he realized with some surprise that he was slipping into sleep.


End file.
